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This Saturday, February 26, 2011 (TOMORROW) for approximately 4 hours, you should go on a tour of the local craft brewing industry.

The Washington Beer Commission organized an Open House of sorts where local breweries open their doors to beer lovers providing them with the good stuff to make this an epic Saturday afternoon. From 12PM-4PM you can plan your route or pick an area of Washington to tour:

This event will showcase a number of special beers, beer pairings and surprises at many locations. You will just have to go and find out what is in store. Don’t forget this Saturday is the Grand Opening of American Brewing Co.

This event is free but beer prices at each location will apply. Drive safely or don’t drive at all and ENJOY!

One of several beer fests in Seattle throughout the year, Belgium Fest is the first in 2011. On January 22, 2011 this festival, run by the Washington Beer Commission will begin. Due to the high demand of this event, the venue has been moved to Magnuson Park (it will be heated, do not worry).

Word on the street is that tickets are already being sold at an alarming rate, so go online NOW and secure your spot. This is a festival that requires some advance commitment. Waiting until the day of might not be the best idea. $30.00 advance and $35.00 at the door, if available. As always, the designated driver ticket is $5.00 and only available at the door- includes free water and soda.

You pick one of two sessions on Saturday, January 22, 2011-

Session 1: 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Session 2: 5:30-9:30 p.m.

The Workshop at Magnuson Park
6310 NE 74th St., Seattle, WA

Now for the important stuff. The beers. For now all I have are the breweries, but hope to have a list of all the beers in the next week or so.

So, we promised a lot of new articles this week. I especially promised to have a Walking Man Brewing review up by today. But alas, there were some magical developments last night that prevented me from visiting the computer to do a write up.

The product is beginning to flow and we decided to drag you along for the ride. We also believe that our readers can be an excellent source for information on brewing and bettering your finished product. So please give it a read and chime in if you have any info to help us.

The Event & The Opportunity.

Last night, our famed kickball team was forced to forfeit a game after our editor was injured by a bit of excessive play on the other side. Luckily, both teams are forfeiting – and deservedly so for that team. Best of luck to our editor as she overcomes her mild head injury. Get better Jess!

Anyways, the early departure allowed us to return home to find our good friend Timperial Stout, home from a day of brewing Lazy Boy Brewing‘s Imperial IPA (cannot wait to try this!). Tim and I decided to unearth the fermentors that we deposited in the basement a few weeks back – and sample our first batch of beer.

The Concerns.

We had truly feared contamination after a troubling conclusion to our first brewing experience with the new half-barrel system that we built. Our chilling process was exacerbated, our yeast measurements were shoddy at best and our transfer process was forced to happen after-dark, causing all types of concerns.

We also had tons of problems keeping solids from entering the boil, which made the wort a bit earthy. We have since developed better techniques to prevent solid insurgence.

The Beer Recipe.

For our inaugural beer, we chose a nice solid, summery IPA. We wanted to keep the hop profile simple, yet tasty. We also selected a malt mix that focused on one type of pale malt, but a lot of it to reach an optimal range of 7% alcohol by volume. This beer includes crystal malt, cara-pils, and pale malt. The hop list includes Magnum, Cascade and an abundance of Amarillo.

I take a whiff first – it smells like beer. Nothing incredible about the nose, but it smells a bit skunky, though not overwhelmingly so.

Then I take a sip, convinced that the smell was encouraging. First take: not bad, not at all. Second take: I actually enjoy this beer. I take another deep smell and a big sip, swishing the beer around my mouth. I am met with strong tones of sweetness, hefty bitterness and a deep fruity finish. I am a happy man.

The Measurements.

We took some measurements. Our original gravity was 1.066 and we finished at 1.012, exactly as we had set out to do. The ABV rang in at about 7.1%, again what we were looking to do. The color was a nice golden copper (probably a 7 on most charts) and the clarity was above average. The amount of unfiltered residue was minimal as well.

We were seriously surprised on the finished color and clarity, especially after we had termed the beer as “Pond Scum IPA” during the brewing process. The beer seemed to really clear up throughout fermentation.

The Remaining Dilemmas.

So, we are ready to drink the 8-9 gallons that we yielded (a poor yield, but we’ll get better). But the goal is to correct some of the common problems that many Seattle home brewers probably face:

(1) How do we chill the wort with a hose temperature of 78 degrees!?

Using an immersion chiller is difficult in Seattle. Our ground water is only about 78 degrees, which is higher than what we want to chill the beer to. This time, it took about 1.5 hours to get it chilled. Thats dangerous.

(2) How do we manage the yeast?

We are using recycled brewery liquid yeast (thanks to great friends). Because of this, we need to find a good way to (a) determine the amount of active yeast particles in the liquid and (b) figure out how much is needed for our batch.

We will continue to work and figure this stuff out – but Beer Blotter’s 1st Anniversary party is this November and we plan on brewing our own beer for the big extravaganza. So, any help from you brewer readers out there is greatly appreciated.

We had a nice little Monday evening, enjoying some of great beer in the process.

One of our good friends received a nice care package complete with about 20 bottles of New Glarus Brewing‘s year-round ales. The Wisconsin brewer makes a couple great beers, and a couple rough ones. We really enjoyed the Moon Man Pale, Cracked Wheat Imperial Weizen (a seasonal) and the Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale.

After sucking down a few bottles, we decided to embark on a night of Pink Floyd over at Brouwers Cafe. Apparently, the Seattle beer mecca will be playing concert videos every Monday evening at 10:00 PM. I really enjoyed the show, coupling it with an Ommegang Zuur (a Flemish Brown, very similar to an Oud Bruin) and Mikkeller Frelser (a Triple Bock). Both are excellent beers that you need to try, before they are gone.

By the way, Jessica is over at the Beer Engine in Lakewood, Ohio today. She will be taking notes and letting you all know about it later this week. We are a bit jealous, Beer Engine has Dieu De Ciel Aphrodite, Heavy Seas Loose Cannon, and Founders Cerise on tap!

We are also planning a trip to San Diego for the next beer week. Very excited to attend.

Since we are a day late, I wanted to call attention to Brouwers’ new Monday night feature – music video showings! Brouwers will dim the lights, boost the volume and showcase a different concert/music video each Monday night, starting at 10 PM. Last night’s showing of Pulse by Pink Floyd was epic.

Do not miss this if you are in Brooklyn area. The Bar Great Harry is an amazing bar and anyone in the area should certainly become acquainted. What better way to do that – than with a pint of Allagash Curieux.

There are actually a few good brewers nights around the country on this Wednesday. But, the combination of charity and a really cool pub in Oakland – make this one the winner.

Beer Revolution is a very cool little spot in Oakland, where you can find about 12 beers on tap and a plethora of bottles. Beer Revolution does an excellent job of attaining little know, and hard to find beers.

Their blending night brings some blending pros over to show you how to make some fine concoctions from you already have in your cellar. They will be working with the following:

This Thursday, LBB‘s Shawn Loring and Timperial Stout will truck on over to the Gator to serve up some of their incredible beers. These days, LBB is showcasing a Nacho Pilsner (made with chillies), a NW Pale (packed with more hops than you typical IPA) and a NW Hefeweizen (for you men who like hops with their light beer). Check them all out – and remember to look for their Imperial IPA at next month’s Fremont Ocktoberfest.

I cannot express to you all – how damn good this beer tastes. Alpine Beer Company, of Alpine, CA (outside San Diego), is quickly becoming my favorite brewery. I would have no trouble considering them a part of my Top 5 US brewers today, and they are likely gain ground as I get my fill of more from them at San Diego Beer Week in November.

Alpine makes, what I believe to be, the top IPAs in the country. They are abundantly scented, daringly flavorful and perfectly intoxicating. But, I have also had their Barleywine, Flemish Red Sour Ale, and their Irish Red. They all bring tears to my eyes, in a good way.

This is your chance to get a look at 3 of the best of their beers. From the bar’s release:

O’Brien’s Pub will be releasing brand new batches of Alpine Bad Boy, Exponential Hoppiness and O’Brien’s IPA on Friday the 13th. We’ll also have Nelson Rye-IPA, Duet IPA and Tuatara on tap. A great night of rare hoppy beers from Alpine.

You never see anything good going down in the City of Sin. So I was very excited to see that a rather impressive beer festival will happen this weekend – and its for charity. In association with Ronnie James Dio’s ’Stand Up & Shout’ cancer fund, the festival will include silent auctions to benefit cancer research.

This coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the WA Brewers Fest. You should go. Support our great state’s breweries, both new and old.

Very few states in this great US of A have so many exciting breweries. Unless you are some sort of professional brewery visitor and all you do from Monday through Friday is travel from brewery to brewery, trying everything available, there is no way you have tried all of the beers available at this fest. Get out, educate yourself, have fun, challenge your palate, and be responsible.

The following is the complete list of beers available for taste throughout the weekend. Well, I guess they won’t all be available throughout the weekend, some are Friday only (indicated with **). I’ve chosen to steer clear of these, for the most part, for several reasons. The biggest reason being that most of these beers have rarely been seen before, if at all, and thus I have very little information about them. If they sound good, and most do, and you are able to get a pour, sip it down and let us know what you think.

Of the remainder, I’ve highlighted the ones that I feel are most worth checking out. If you know about something special that I glossed over, please feel free to contact us.

Alpine Brewing– Oroville, WA
Alpine Pilsner (Pilsner)Alpine HefeWeizen (HefeWeizen)– Alpine and Chuckanut are always battling it out for German style superiority. A hefe is one of the very best styles for outdoor summer drinking.

Big Time Brewery– Seattle, WA
Wheat beer (American Wheat)Trombipulator (Belgian Tripel)– In case you didn’t know, bb.com has a strong affinity for Belgian ales. Big Time is quite possibly Seattle’s best brewery, but it often slips under the radar with its U-District hideout and lack of bottle distribution. I’ll take a little slice of Europe in the Emerald City any chance I get.
Ave Rat Malt Liquor (Malt Liquor)

Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen– Bellingham, WA
Kolsch (German Ale)Pilsner (German Pilsner)– It is extremely rare that I recommend a lager of any kind, especially a pilsner, but chances are good that you will find no better brew in the style than that of Chuckanut.

Foggy Noggin Brewing*- Bothell, WA
Bit O’ Beaver (English Bitter)Christmas Duck (Porter)– Here is a good chance to check out one of our newest breweries. At the very least, these guys seem to know how to name a beer. I’m simultaneously hungry and thirsty right now.Kastrated Dawg** (Strong Ale)

Georgetown Brewing*- Seattle, WA
Manny’s Pale Ale (Pale Ale)Lucille (IPA) – Those of you who read our work with any regularity know that we have done some gushing about this one. Timperial has yet to try it. It will be sampled.
Roger’s Pilsner (Pilsner)
Cask Porter** (Porter)

Hale’s Ales Brewery*- Seattle, WASupergoose (IPA) – Chances are good that you have had this one before. Its presence on the market is very strong. If by chance you haven’t, please do yourself a favor. This beer is really good.
IX Gold on Sour Cherries (Belgian Strong Golden)
Kolsch (Kolsch)
SBW (Double IPA)Saizon** (Saison) – Another saison for us to try. Let’s see how a Fremont brewery interprets the farmhouse style.

Lazy Boy Brewing*- Everett, WA– This is what they call “shameless self promotion”. But seriously, all of these beers are delicious. If for no other reason, get the chili beers so that all of the pain Shawn and I go through manually chopping those peppers is worth it. Dry, cracked brewer hands + Scoville units = burning for days!

ColoradoNew Belgium Brewing– Fort Collins, CO
Ranger IPA (IPA)Trip VI (Spring Citrus Pale Ale)– In case you have been living under a rock for the past few years, the Trip series is a collaboration with Seattle’s own Elysian Brewing. These rarely strike out. Spring Citrus sounds really refreshing.

IllinoisGoose Island Beer Co. – Chicago, ILMatilda (Belgian Style Ale)– I’m kind of amazed that these guys are going to be at the fest. They are clearly quite serious about pushing into the WA market. That’s very fortunate for us. Goose Island makes killer brews and Matilda is no exception.

Deschutes Brewery– Bend, OR
Twilight Sumemer Ale (Light Ale)Hop in the Dark (Cascadian Dark Ale) – CDA is another way of saying black IPA, or balanced to the extreme. You can never go wrong with Deschutes.

As you know by now, we just returned from an epic week of camping which included Dick’s Imperial Stout (amazing), Imperial IPA, Barleywine and Grand Cru as well as Lazy Boy Brewing’s Pale Ale and Imperial Red. After a lot of laughs and an unforgettable 27th Birthday, I am back in action with your weekly events, minus Monday.

Brickskeller has so many beers, a top notch bottle selection and when their taps are available, its damn good too. But tonight is not about the wide array of beers, its about Indiana based brewery, Three Floyds. Meet the Floyds themselves and our old buddy Barnaby Struve who now brews there in his welcome return to the city and taste at least EIGHT of their great beers, many rare brews never before available in the area! Tickets for this GREAT event are just $35.00
Puchase tickets at: http://www.lovethebeer.com/events.html

Thursday, June 3, 2010

An Evening with Patrick Rue from the Bruery: Washington, District of Columbia

You folks from DC sure are lucky this week, Three Floyds and The Bruery in one week. Timperial Stout had the pleasure of chatting with Patrick Rue during Seattle Beer Week and we are all very impressed by the beers. This four course beer pairing with take you through all of the creative, flavorful brews from the Bruery. Enjoy!

Enjoy your Friday night during a Magic Hat Brewery tasting event. There will be free samples, discounts and give-a-ways. Come on down and try the Magic Hat line up. Check out their website, its very entertaining.

The Devil’s Den will be donating $1 from every Bell’s beer sold on Saturday, June 5th to the Rena Rowen Breast Center of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Look forward to this amazingly wonderful bottle list: Two Hearted, Batch 9000, HopSlam, Kalamazoo Stout (the good stuff), Oberon. Final Draft List TBD but look for Fresh HopSlam, Two Hearted, Oberon & Hell Hath No Fury.

BeerBlotter.com's Jessica Reiser at the Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium.

Yesterday was the 27th birthday of our editor and fearless leader – Jessica Reiser. We all really appreciate her dedication to BeerBlotter.com and her amazing thirst for excellent beer at home and abroad on our many beer excursions!

We celebrated this joyous event with a weekend full of camping in Southern Washington’s Seaquest Park, topped off with a day in Seattle drinking beer at Collins Pub, dining at Cafe Campagne and having a nightcap supplied by cellar treats! There was some good beer along the way….

On the way down south, we stopped for a lunch over at the Nothwest Sausage and Deli, the home of Dicks Brewing Co. This place is a mecca of smoked meats, cheeses and of course Dick Young’s famous beers. A more substantive article will appear this week in our 52 Weeks column – but this place is simply amazing and should never be missed by any beer lover.

Lazy Boy Brewing supplied a jockey box and 1/4 kegs of its new Pale Ale and its Imperial Red for our camping trip over the weekend. New Lazy Boy assistant and Beer Blotter writer Timperial Stout helped create what we are calling a “dixie cup randall” filled with fresh smoked wood chips, soaked in Makers Mark. We used the mini-randall to create a bourbon wood infused imperial red (we kind of wish we had used the Pale Ale, but this was still a damn good beer).

Yesterday, Seattle’s Collins Pub supplied some exciting beers with pours of Boundary Bay’s Imperial IPA, Midnight Sun’s 3767 Belgian-style IPA, New Belgium’s Eric Sour Peach Ale and Allagash’s Trippel. We are all such big fans of 3767, an IPA wort engineered by Ballast Point Brewing (San Diego) and infused with 3 different yeast strains (Brett included) and bottle conditioned by Midnight Sun (Anchorage). Its amazing beer in the bottle – and better on the tap.

We enjoyed an incredible dinner at Cafe Campagne, comprised of escargot, country pate, roast duck, steak and fine grenache wine. But we finished up with a nite cap filled with some cellar favorites that had been pushed back for a special occasion. Avery Brewing‘s Brabant Wild Ale was a splendid surprise. The beer has the body of a Cascadian Dark Ale, but the Belgian undertones of a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Noire. The beer is fermented with Brett and conditioned in Zinfendel barrels. Very impressive, though not as sour as we hoped.

The Grand Cru Bruscella from Cantillon.

We also enjoyed a special beer from Brussels’ Brasserie Cantillon. Cantillon’s Grand Cru Bruscella was a beer that we first enjoyed during a meal at De Gans, a quirky house/restaurant on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. After visiting the Cantillon brewery back in March, we decided to take a bottle for the road. The beer is a simple 3 years old lambic with virtually no carbonation and little body – but bursting with flavor. This particular bottle was from the 2006 vintage and is from the “Bio” series of beers made with organically grown ingredients. We very much enjoy this beer, as its flavor develops down to the last drop.

Again – Happy Birthday to Jessica! Expect to see an article reviewing her night with Tomme Arthur during Seattle Beer Week at Brouwers Cafe, later this week.